Catherine Raynes: Storm Child and Agent Zo

Storm Child by Michael Robotham 

The mystery of Evie Cormac’s background has followed her into adulthood. As a child, she was discovered hiding in a secret room where a man had been tortured to death. Many of her captors and abusers escaped justice, unseen but not forgotten. Now, on a hot summer’s day, the past drags Evie back as she watches the bodies of seventeen migrants wash up on a Lincolnshire beach. 

There is only one survivor, a teenage boy, who tells police their small boat was deliberately rammed and sunk. Psychologist Cyrus Haven is recruited by the police to investigate the murders—but recognizes immediately that Evie has some link to the tragedy. By solving this crime, he could finally unlock the secrets of her past. But what dark forces will he set loose? And who will pay the price? 

 

Agent Zo by Clare Mulley 

This is the incredible story of Elzbieta Zawacka, the WW2 female resistance fighter known as Agent Zo, told here for the very first time. Agent Zo was the only woman to reach London from Warsaw during the Second World War as an emissary of the Polish Home Army command, and then in Britain she became the only woman to join the Polish elite Special Forces, known as the 'Silent Unseen'. She was secretly trained in the British countryside, and then the only female member of these SOE affiliated forces to be parachuted back behind enemy lines to Nazi-occupied Poland. There, whilst being hunted by the Gestapo who arrested her entire family, she took a leading role in the Warsaw Uprising and the liberation of Poland. 

After the war she was demobbed as one of the most highly decorated women in Polish history. Yet the Soviet-backed post-war Communist regime not only imprisoned her, but also ensured that her remarkable story remained hidden for over forty years. Now, through new archival research and exclusive interviews with people who knew and fought alongside Zo, Clare Mulley brings this forgotten heroine back to life, and also transforms how we see the history of women's agency in the Second World War. 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast
from Newstalk zed B.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Twenty to twelve on Newstalks. He'd be Katherine Rains as
our book reviewer. She's got two reads for us this weekend. Hey, Catherine,
Morning Jack. Let's begin with Storm Child by Michael Robotham.

Speaker 3 (00:24):
So this is in a series, and so this is
the fourth in the series of Ev Cormack, and you
get to learn a little bit more about her mysterious
past and she's very silent on her name and background
instead of a precaution for her own self preservation. And
she's a with a psychologist to go. And I'm Sarah Cyrus,
Haven and Nottingham for the last three years. And they

(00:45):
decide to take a holiday trip to Cleethorpe's on the
Lincolnshire coast, and this horrifying site plays out before their
eyes as these bodies of migrants are washed up on
the beach, including a little boy, and there's a teenage survivor,
a boy named Arburn. And this tragedy has a particular
impact on Ev. And Cyrus works with the Nottingham Police

(01:05):
Force and he's drafted to help this inquiry that's going
on and he finds himself very involved in this and
it turns out of a llegal boat trafficking of refugees
and gangs and led by this mythical guy they call
the Fairyman who damages the boats of refugees who don't
pay him, and you know, revengeful compensation and all sorts
of things going on, and the narrative alternates between ev

(01:28):
and Cyrus, and the situation brings back a lot of
Evie's memories and provide a little bit more of her backstory,
and he gets ever changing plot that's told in flashbacks
that trigger memories and drama and all sorts of things,
and these recollections from the present day storyline in this
dark tale. So you got lots of things, the refugee
situation and modern slavery and Evie's mind and the way

(01:49):
things are working for her, and it's just it's a
fascinating unraveling of her tail, which is a little bit
more of her.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
Tail, okay, called That's a Storm Child by Michael Robotham.
You've also read Agent Zoe by Clear Mulley.

Speaker 3 (02:03):
So this is the story of Elizabethta. She was a
Polish World War II female resistance fighter and her name
was Agent Zo. And so the story sort starts out
actually after the war in September fifth, nineteen fifty one,
and she arrives home from her teaching job to find
these two officials waiting for her, and they ransack her

(02:24):
flat in northern Poland, and they find this cotton rail
containing a ten dollar note of all things, and only
foreign currency in communist Poland at that time carried a
ten year sentence including torture. And it was just an
absurd part of her story. And this woman who had
fought to defend eastern Poland from the Nazis. She joined

(02:46):
the Home Army, which was one of the largest resistance
movements in Europe. She'd run a network of couriers taking
information to the Polish government, which happened to be an
excited in London. She trained volunteers of the British Special
Operations Executive of Underground Resistance Fighters and she was the
only woman that was parachuted back into Oki Pied Poland.

(03:07):
And there these amazing physical challenges she undertook as well,
you know, deep snow and the Pyrenees and bombed by
the English and shot out by border guards and Claire
Marle Mulley, who's told this story, said that Agent Zo
had set herself to missions in life to bring freedom
to a country and the equality, quality of opportunity, rank
and recognition to her fellow service woman. And she actually

(03:29):
ironically achieves the last one of those right at the
end of her life. And she's officially recognized and awarded
the Order of the White Eagle, and at ninety seven
she was given the military title of Brig General retired
and of course an independent democratic Poland, which was her
first wish. But she's just an astonishing woman. And you

(03:50):
know there's a detailed account of history in Poland in
the twentieth century as well, you know, invaded simultaneously by
Hitler and Stalin, and you know, the Poles were amazing.
You know, they provided nearly half of Britain's war time
intelligence and you know, made these invaluable contributions to the
to the war effort. And yeah, and then finally in
old age, she's recognized as who she should have been

(04:12):
recognized and bright from day one. But the story and yeah,
is amazing as she kind of steps through I can't
you know of lots of these World War two female
resistance workers, fighters, sorry, and lots of people and pilots
and all sorts of things, and you just the stories
are unmanageable of what they put themselves to.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yeah, oh sounds great. Cool, Okay, there's Agent Zo by
Clear Mulley, Catherine's first book, A Storm Child by Michael Robot,
and both of those, of course, we listed up on
the News Talk's he'd b website. It's sixteen to twelve.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, Listen live
to news Talks he'd Be from nine am Saturday, or
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